Situations exist in which people must wait to obtain access to a limited resource. One example is a conventional telephone call handling system for a customer service department. In this example, there may be a limited number of customer service representatives available to take telephone calls from customers.
If there are fewer calling customers than customer service representatives, all of the calling customers may receive immediate attention. However, if there are more calling customers than customer service representatives, some of the customer calls may be put on hold by the telephone call handling system.
While a customer waits on hold to speak to a customer service representative, the telephone call handling system may play music. Additionally, some telephone call handling systems may play a human voice recording which explains that telephone calls will be handled in the order received. Furthermore, some telephone call handling systems may provide an estimate to each caller regarding the amount of time it may take for the caller to speak to an actual customer service representative.